This invention relates in general to a combination paging system and radio telephone system, and in particular to a method and apparatus for transmitting pages over a wide area to a radio paging receiver coupled to a radio telephone transceiver for automatic service area log-in.
Paging (or selective call) systems normally provide one-way radio frequency (RF) communication of selective call messages (pages) from a message originator to a paging receiver. The message originator contacts the paging system via the public switched telephone network (PSTN) system or other input interface, and provides the message information to a paging controller. Typically, the message information is encoded into a conventional signaling protocol, modulated onto a carrier signal, and transmitted as an RF signal over a paging channel to the paging receiver. The paging receiver receives the signal, demodulates, and decodes the signal to recover the message, and presents the message to a user of the paging receiver.
Air time is a precious commodity in paging systems. A paging service provider that wishes to provide service to a large number of subscribers (paging receiver users) must do so in a cost effective manner to make the paging system commercially viable. These paging system subscribers tend to be mobile and can roam over a wide geographic area while still expecting to receive pages over the wide geographic area. Further, a paging channel tends to limit the number of messages that can be transmitted therethrough because it has a limited bandwidth. Therefore, service providers wishing to service the ever increasing numbers of subscribers over a wide geographic area do so by segmenting the wide geographic coverage area into a plurality of smaller service areas for transmitting more pages thereinto in a parallel fashion to enhance overall system throughput.
A problem arises when a subscriber roams from service area to service area and the service provider has to keep track of such roaming to make sure that any pages transmitted to a roaming subscriber will reach the paging receiver. Typically, this has been accomplished by requiring the subscriber to provide an itinerary and schedule to the service provider before departing on a trip. The service provider would manually configure a paging system subscriber data base to send pages destined for the roaming subscriber to the destination service area (or service areas) corresponding to the itinerary and schedule. Upon returning home from the trip, the subscriber again would contact the service provider to reconfigure the paging system subscriber data base for sending pages destined for the subscriber to the home service area(s). This can be a laborious endeavor, and is subject to human error during manual entry, which tends to reduce the efficiency and accuracy of the paging system operations thereby adding operational costs and potentially frustrating customers who missed pages sent to incorrect destination service areas.
Thus, what is needed is a wide area paging system that can automatically keep track of service areas for roaming subscribers.
In one form of the invention, there is provided a method for communicating comprising the steps of: (a) transmitting paging signals having a location identifier associated with a geographic location; (b) receiving location update signals for identifying the geographic location of a transceiver transmitting same; (c) decoding the location identifier incorporated in the location update signals and storing the location identifier associated with the transceiver transmitting same; (d) receiving paging messages; (e) routing the paging messages addressed to the transceiver located in another geographic location in response to the location identifier associated with the transceiver; and (f) transmitting the paging messages addressed to the transceiver located in the geographic location of the paging system.
In another form, a transceiver comprises a receiver for receiving paging signals that includes a location identifier associated with a geographic location of a paging transmitter transmitting the paging signals. A decoder coupled to the receiver decodes the paging signals to recover a page and the location identifier. A memory stores the page and the location identifier identifying the geographic location of the transceiver. A message processor, coupled to the memory, determines when a new location identifier is received; and a controller initiates a return location identifier transmission to a home paging controller in response to the reception of the new location identifier. A transmitter, coupled to the controller, transmits the new location identifier to the home paging controller for informing the home paging controller that the transceiver is located in the new geographic location indicated by the location identifier.